You never heard of Joseph Wood until last week, when the state of Arizona took two hours to execute him by lethal injection, a process that is supposed to be quick and painless, the human equivalent of putting ol’ Fido to sleep.

Then you heard endlessly about how much Wood might have suffered (we don’t really know) because the drugs they stuck into him didn’t work properly.

All week there were heart-rending stories about the pain and suffering of this man, but hardly any coverage of why Arizona put him to death. On MSNBC, a series of hand-wringing liberal hosts (that’s all they have) discussed his plight nightly, with nary a hint of what he’d done to get put on the death table in the first place.

There’s a reason why the man was dealt his final blow. The verdict was never in doubt.

On Aug. 7, 1989, Wood drove to the Tucson body shop where his ex-girlfriend worked for owner Gene Dietz, her father.

“Wood, who had sometimes assaulted Debbie Dietz during their relationship, walked into her workplace and shot her father in the chest. She was on the phone calling for help when Wood grabbed her around the neck and shot her in the chest,” said the Arizona Daily Star at tucson.com.

“Employees of the auto shop who witnessed the shootings heard Wood say: ‘I told you I was going to do it. I love you. I have to kill you, (expletive).’

“Police arrived almost immediately, having followed Wood because of a traffic violation. When confronted, Wood pointed his gun at police, who fired at him, hitting him with nine shots.

“At the 1991 trial, Wood’s attorney argued his client’s alcoholism and drug use caused him to be erratic and depressed.”

There’s no question he did it. Did he deserve the death penalty?

I would rather have put him away for life, without possibility of parole. I no longer support the death penalty for a practical reason: Our flawed prosecutorial and judicial system sometimes sentences people to death row who shouldn’t be there. Since 1973, more than 140 death row inmates have been exonerated and set free, says deathpenaltyinfo.org. How many others were killed wrongly?

County prosecutors in the U.S. are partisan politicians worried about winning the next election. Numerous cases reopened by university justice reform projects prove that “the law” sometimes nabs, tries and convicts the wrong culprit — some poor mope with a prior record and no money to fight back — to get a conviction.

Remember Rolando Cruz, the 20-year-old gang member convicted of the 1983 murder of Jeanine Nicarico of Naperville? He was put on death row. On his second re-trial, evidence emerged that the police investigation was flawed, and he was set free in 1995.

Nicarico, it turned out, was murdered by serial rapist/killer Brian Dugan, who in 1984 murdered nurse Donna Schnorr, 27, of Geneva, and in 1985 murdered 7-year-old Melissa Ackerman of Somonauk. Dugan is serving life without parole.

The death penalty doesn’t influence crime rates. I’m sure Wood didn’t think, “Hmmm, if I kill Debbie and her dad I might get the death penalty so I’d better not do it.” That’s insane. I’m OK with putting people away for life without parole. That protects society.

Then, if new information comes up proving a convicted murderer didn’t do it, he’d still be alive to have a new day in court.

The reason we are having more difficulty executing people is that the foreign suppliers of the drug combination we used won’t sell it to us anymore — they think we’re barbaric — and Americans no longer make the drugs. So, states have been experimenting with various drug combos and results are mixed.

The Eighth Amendment bans us from exacting cruel and unusual punishment. But I think we’ve made executions too antiseptic by putting them in settings that resembles hospital operating rooms and denying all but a few members of the public the right to see what’s being done in their name.

The last public hanging in Winnebago County was in downtown Rockford in 1910. People used to come from miles around to hangings, bringing picnic lunches with them.

Hanging might be considered cruel and unusual by today’s standards, so if our politicians insist on keeping the death penalty, let’s use firing squads, which deliver certain, instant death. Wyoming is considering doing just that.

Let’s invite the public, and put up orange signs that say, “Your tax dollars at work. We are reducing traffic congestion by eliminating excess motorists.”